"I know that is what I typed, but that isn't what I meant. If computers are so smart it should have know that!!! Grrrrrrrrrr!!"

I know what you mean, tinjaw. Computers can be frustrating, just like people can. I think a lot of ppl don't realize that computers have feelings. Just the other day, my computer finally broke down and admitted to me that she's been very jealous the past few weeks because I've been seeing another computer (at work). I hadn't been careful enough (had unthinkingly sent an email from work computer to my ISP internet account), and what could I say? I was caught with both hands on the keyboard! I just swallowed my pride and apologized, and gave her a RAM upgrade and a nice long defrag. We're getting along fine again, now ...

I totally agree with the whole notion of computers having personalities like people. I will even go so far as to say they have genders too.

And they do play favorites with users, acting nice to some and being impossible to others.

My old pc adores me (EdTheSlowAss)...hates everyone else. But we came to an understanding a long time ago, which is why he's agreeable with me.

I agreed to take the time and listen to him and be patient. He agreed that if I am kind and gentle, he won't act like a cranky old man and will instead perform beyond what others would expect from a guy his age.

And nearly every program I write is with him in mind. Everything ends up as a gift to him. If he doesn't like it, I fix it till he does.

My daughter, on the other hand, yells at him and insults him all the time...and Ed is a very sensitive guy...scares easily. You can tell from that frozen expression he gets on the monitor every time she goes near him.

As long as my daughter stays away from him, I have a very stable WinME pc that treats me kindly.

And what, pray, is your objection to a cranky old men? My favourite machine is a years-old, all-SCSI box, that's the most reliable backup system I've had in a long time. (It runs XP Pro nowadays: apparently, I got on its good side when it was a mere slip of a lad.)

And what, pray, is your objection to a cranky old men? My favourite machine is a years-old, all-SCSI box, that's the most reliable backup system I've had in a long time. (It runs XP Pro nowadays: apparently, I got on its good side when it was a mere slip of a lad.)

I have no probs with old men. I have probs with cranky though, regardless of age.

^^^ hay Mouser, I might have to get you to come over the house..... last night I had a HUGE rat leap off the counter in the kitchen and just miss me as it dashed towards a crack beneath one of the kitchen cupboards. It dashes when I entered the room flicking the light in..... scared the living you kno what outta me! I nearly screamed out loud!!

Holy hell that freaked me out! got the trusty Crossman 760 pump bb gin out and at the ready!! Score to date: KH 5 Ratz 0 I'm a pretty good shot! Once my sister was comning inside to drop some stuff off and as we entered the front door I heard something scurry... I told her wait by the door. Came back with the BB gun and a maglite flash lite. Had her shine the lite in its face *(made it freeze) and pumped it 3 times and nailed it right in the head! Sis screamed and rat took off trailing blood !! Found it in the bathroom and popped it again. haha

Sis is still impressed by that LOLz too funny she tells everyone like I bagged a trophy buck or something lmao

My house is backed up against the mountain so when it gets hot at the start of summer the rats come looking for food.

Had a sign by my froont door once Rats Open season Bag linit none people would crack up when they see that

Yeah, me too. I'm horribly squeamish about killing anything. Yes, I realise that this makes me a hypocrite every time I eat meat, but c'est la vie...

I had to have my dog put down yesterday and miss him desperately. I couldn't help thinking that 100 year ago I would have been out back with a gun and a shovel (or just the shovel) and have done the deed myself. I guess compassion for someone or something that we love can make us do the unthinkable... We've divorced ourselves so much from life (and death) we don't know how to deal with it.

PS you can read "we" above as the royal we - I really shouldn't generalize as I'm talking about myself!

I'm downloading - that should be uploading i guess - photos from camera as i write so i can post a view from the window or wherever as people were doing earlier in this thread.

Tom's the name - but "tom" was gone when i first joined the forum (just over a year ago - finally introducing myself!)

Anyways, I'm irish and i live in germany for the last 4 & half years now. Dont get homesick but do find the language a struggle at times, complicated by the fact that most people around here speak a dialect that even native speakers from elsewhere take time to come to grips with ...

I was 43 a couple weeks ago - at the beginning here i thought i was old for here but this thread & that one about what age people are made me feel a bit more "average" ! (I know - why should i want to be average, well it all began when I was a wee fellah... )

Computerwise, I'm probably about the same level as Curt who describes himself as "IT Analphabet" -I'm not afraid to jump in and get my hands dirty though!On the other hand I love software that works well and is easy to figure out -I find if something promises something but doesent work easily out of the box I'll probably just forget about it unless I really want to do whatever it does.

I like taking fotos especially of where i live so -

from the front door - sun just over the hillOK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

from the window - south, morning againOK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

north-west, evening, edge of the village (about 5 houses up the hill )OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

Apparently I joined DonationCoder on 18 Dec 05, so maybe it's about time I dropped something here, eh... (I just finished reading the whole thread - some very interesting people have been kind enough to share a bit of themselves - thanks!)

If you were to click on the "pink document icon" over to the left, you would see something like this:

Have not done any programming since (very) long ago. My first programs (some flavor of Fortran) were in 1967 for a chemistry course. By 1969 I had written a number of games in APL (yes, APL!; and, yes, at times I suffered from the "one-liner syndrome", for those of you to whom that has meaning) - even had a working APL chess program back then (it had very little AI, if you could even call it that, but at least it followed the rules... ). Had a very short stint with Assembler when I was - briefly - a qualifying computer science grad student. Have been a chemical technologist (food chemistry) for coming on 35 years on 1 Dec 07 - could have taken early retirement in 2002 with a so-called "full" pension but, for some reason, I'm still workin' on... Was a very active chess player (never higher than "expert") and organizer for about 25 yrs, but gave up that activity about 15 years ago. Reading? - if it's a book, it's SF. Most of my spare time is spent - overspent? - sitting here in front of the PC (something like 50-60 hours a week, I'd say). Oh, yeh, I was born in and still live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and am called "Len" (in polite company).

I grew up in central NSW and Sydney and lived and worked there until 15 or so yrs ago when i moved to Melbourne with my job, I worked for Telstra, the phone company, firstly in customer service, you know the stuff, not letting people have time to pay their bills that kind of thing lol, then in melbourne i worked with the development of their then new billing system, helping with design and testing of it, it was fun but came to an end and i was made redundant.

I now live in western victoria on a little block of land with a small house (5acres) and I am presently studying sociology and politics at a university near here.

I enjoy playing around with my computer as a user of programs, i cant program at all, and I have recently been having a great time with window blinds and making my computer look pretty, well i like black so its very dark (finding a black theme that is actually usable is quite a hunt, so i've actually ended up with dark grey lol)

Hi, everyone. Fascinating reading, this. There seems to be an overabundance of you loyal (some not so loyal) subjects than us revolutionaries. But that's OK, I won't hold it against you.

I was born in NEW Mexico, USA in 1947. Left when I was 17 to go to school in Louisiana, Majored in Booze, Girls and partying. Graduated cum laude (not really, just in my major) in 1967, just in time for a letter from my neighbors telling me I had been selected to join the Army. Not being an Army type, I joined the Navy, reasoning at least we took our beds with us and had hot food most of the time.

Spent two years in California, learning electronics and cryptography. In a fit of idiocy, I volunteered to go to Vietnam. The Navy, rightly deciding they did not want certifiably crazy people in Vietnam, sent me to Iceland. Two years there and two years in Virginia and we parted ways. I must admit, I saw a large part of the world, but not anyplace anyone was likely to shoot at me. The Med, Caribbean, Central and South America.

Went back to school and supported my wife and daughter through the GI Bill and night work at a "no tell motel." Learned more there than in school. I spent four years in the hotel business and went back to work for the government as an auditor (not IRS), got my accounting/economics degree. Had another daughter. I was able to take an early retirement in 1999 and have been vegetating here in Louisiana since then.

I started with computers with a BASIC course in 1973, thought I can't stand this, and didn't even touch a computer again until 1980 or 81. The Sinclair Z80 (friend's), a TI-99-4A (mine) were myt intro to computers. Man, I hated the tape reader on that TI! My office got an IBM XT in 1983 and I became the guru. DOS 2.11 on up to 6.22, Windows 1.0 (Yecch!), 2.0 ( a little better), 3.0, 3.1 (finally!), 3.11, NT 3.5, 4.0, 95 (WOW!), 98, 98 SE(loved), ME (Yecch!) and now XP Home, Pro and Media Center. I've played around with Linux over the years but don't want to put the time in I would have to to really learn it.

Both of our daughters live in Alexandria, VA. One works as a project manager for the Dept of Education, the other is a Licensed counselor who works with a lot of foster kids.

I'm not usually a poster, but everyone else seems to be sharing, so...here goes! I just was over at the age poll thread, and it informed me that I'm probably younger than everyone reading this! So much for worrying about creeping up on thirty.(shhhh) As for life in a nutshell, let's go the computer route. My high school was exclusivelymac...that was where I learned to tYpE, work with office stuff, surf with Navigator, and was even able to take a course on C (a pretty big deal for a small-town high school ten years ago!). So, computers are neat. I toodle off to college to take Media Production thinking I'm going to be some kind of journalist. Then I find out--the college is in the real world and THEY USE PCS!!!!! I had never touched one before, and now I had to design and render animations. Ack! I don't know how many of you can relate to the utter helplessnes of sitting in front a pc for the first time and being totally clueless...when you know how to write basic programs! It was surreal. Eventually got a job at a tv station, where I was forced to use windows 3.1 and we still cut commercials using beta. Then went digital. New cameras, new tapes, new editing suite which consisted of...yes, a mac. Sigh. Now, I'm no longer part of that world (happy little housewife in northern Canada), but between my husband and me our house has three computers, working on a fourth (he wants to "upgrade to vista", read "excuse to build a new computer", but I'll get his old to use as a linux box. Yea me!!). I love scouring for useful freeware, and I think software in general is pretty cool (my husband has a t-shirt that says "I love my geek"--says it all, doesn't it?). I'd love to play with coding, scripting, re-learning everything I've fogotten in C, but I don't know where to start. Someday, I guess. I'm definately not afraid to tackle anything new! This turned into a much, much longer post than I intened...thank you if you made it this far! And just to throw this out there...kudos to anyone who can identify the source of my avatar!

emerald222... welcome, and you will - after a respectable wait for an answer, of course, and assuming the negative - reveal the source of your avatar, eh... (being mildly OCD about such things, I did try to locate the source)